


Picking Up The Pieces

by duelbraids



Category: Xenoblade Chronicles
Genre: F/F, gay birdbot, suuuper spoilers frondos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-07
Updated: 2015-08-07
Packaged: 2018-04-13 10:59:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4519347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duelbraids/pseuds/duelbraids
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>based on a prompt sent to me by tumblr user sofiasakharov,</p>
            </blockquote>





	Picking Up The Pieces

**Author's Note:**

> kind of spoilery, kind of sad so there's that.

There is a pure desperation in Fiora's eyes as she approaches Melia, metal fingers sheepishly intertwining ( if only to have them do something. ) Oh goodness, what would the empress do when she found out, Fiora certainly had made a mess of things. "Melia, I think we have an issue." 

"Do we?" is Melia's only response, turning just enough to have Fiora in her vision. Her expression was so placid, so held back that it only made Fiora worry more -- was it an act to calm her down, or was Melia truly ignorant to what she had done? "Fiora, if something is bothering you, remember that I said you can tell me anything. I promise, I will not judge." 

Fiora glances away, green eyes tracing the floor of the Imperial Villa like it were some masterpiece, before she looks up at Melia again. "You... You promise, right? No yelling or getting upset?"

A chuckle, and Melia shakes her head a bit, "I promise, Fiora. Whatever you tell me, it is not worth hurting our relationship over." Fiora vaugely notes that Melia does not refer to them as a _friendship_ as she should, after all, they were just friends. Just the best of friends who only lived together due to where the regeneration chamber happened to lay. 

"Alright then." Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. Fiora knows if she keeps this up, she'll have herself calmed ( or she'll enter a state of prolonged abnormal breathing, but either will work. ) 

"I..." 

"Spit it out, Fiora, you have my word that I will not be angry." 

Another pause, and Fiora finally blurts out, much lourder than intended, " **I broke one of your vases.** " There is such a fear in her eyes, you'd think she'd confessed to having a body to hide, or to being hopelessly in love -- but Fiora is neither of those things, Melia assumes. Instead, the Empress just laughs.

Melia's laughter was so rare, so fleeting and often times forced and faked; but this is different, this is real. It is at Fiora's expense, but she is glad to see a positive response at all ( if Melia could laugh at somethign so important, perhaps all hope was not lost. ) "Oh, dearest me, Fiora. Did you think I was... Were you worried over that?" 

Fiora nods, and Melia's laughter seems to dim down the tiniest bit. She seems so sincere about it, and Melia knows it is rude to laugh at another's pain. So her grin drops, and instead she steps a bit closer so she could take in Fiora's eyes a bit better ( soon they'll be closed for six months, and Melia will have to cling to the images of Fiora she's doodled in her mind for the worst half of a year. ) Before both logic and Fiora can stop her, Melia takes the other woman's right hand and closes both of hers around them, pulling them up close to her heart, "Oh, it is fine. To be fair, I've always thought most of the vases are quite ugly. I do not even remember who picked them out." she pauses, and smiles again -- genuine smiles just brought out how gorgeous Melia was, Fiora thinks -- "So, you see, everything is alright... Though, we will have to clean such a mess up, cannot have people stepping on broken glass." 

Sighing a short exhale of relief, Fiora allows Melia to keep her hands intertwined instead of ripping them away ( friends don't hold hands, she should know that. ) "Most certainly! I... honestly wanted your help." Help, attention; same difference. 

Never letting go of Fiora, Melia lets her lead the way to where the accident itself had happened. Just a few turns away from her office, she wonders why she hadn't heard the crash. Perhaps her head had been too buried into books -- too buried into the daydreams of kissing, more likely. But, she sees the purple shards -- her mother's favorite color, her favorite color -- and a part of her heart cannot help but hurt a little. 

It had been Kallian's favorite. 

The vase had been picked out a few months after Kallian and Alvis had started to be a couple, and Melia had planned to give it to them as a sort of "good job for finding someone you love" gift. It'd taken her so long to pick out, because of how little she got to go out into the city, and she knew it had to be something that was obviously from her. "A pretty vase, for all the pretty flowers he gives you." such a niaeve thing she'd told him, so long ago. 

Dismayed, Melia lets go of Fiora's hand. "Is something wrong?" Instant question, Melia notices. Fiora always cared too much, and she knows she will only burden Fiora by telling her the truth. So she simply shakes her head, no, everything is fine. She hadn't spent months planning the gift, she hadn't haggled with the man on the price ( You aren't making me pay enough for it, it looks so well made, let me pay more -- no, no, I will not cheat a customer -- Sir, I am telling you to make me give you more money, please stop trying to stop me. )

"How did this happen?" She instead asks, changing the topic, anything to stop thinking about Kallian, to stop thinking about that traitor Alvis, anything to stop thinking. 

"Well, you see," Fiora looked over at the pretty purple chaos, "I had to ask you something and I just figured you'd be in your office, so I was walking down towards there, and as I was walking I got startled and--" as if to demonstrate, she jerkily moved to the left, showing how her drones would have caused such destruction, "I... I broke it."

Without pause, Melia puts a more forced smile on for Fiora ( and Fiora knows it isn't real, this is the first sign something is wrong. ) "It is fine, but we must be careful while we clean it up, remember." More like Melia must be careful, for her skin is of flesh and not of metal. 

A near hour later, the two girls are finished, and Melia's beloved gift is thrown into the trash ( it hurts, to see the shambles put in with things like the rubble they'd been cleaning for months, to be put in with things that meant absolutely nothing. ) Fiora plopped down next to Melia on one of her couches, and she seemed just so cheery, taking Melia's left hand into hers -- payback, she calls it. The metal fingers feel over Melia's hand, just to check for any cuts, and she repeats the process with the right as well, "I mean, you could've gotten hurt, even if we were being careful." she explains when Melia looks over at her -- not that Melia minded, she will take any excuse to be touching Fiora. 

"I suppose." Melia glances over at the place where her lovely vase used to sit, "It seems so off now," she observes, "I think I was used to it sitting there." 

Fiora nods along, hesitant to put Melia's hands back into her own lap -- and instead keeps them there, with her. "I think I was too. It was really pretty too." She shuts her eyes, trying to envision what it looked like. Funny how details slipped away once the object in question was gone, so quickly they disappeared. 

A moment more, and Melia asks, "Should we replace it? I mean, we have plenty of other vases, but moving one would just make another hallway feel strange." Putting any vase there would make it weird, now that Kallian's present was gone, but perhaps the gesture would make Fiora feel better. 

Considering the suggestion, Fiora nods her head once more, "As long as you promise to put any flowers I give you in the new one. We can call it our vase." 

"A done deal, Fiora." Melia laughs a little, just enough to make her realize that it wasn't all that bad. It was just a vase, and she will always remember the look on Kallian's face when she gave it to him ( just as she will remember the look on Fiora's face when she buys the new vase, she is sure of it. ) Always will she remember the day that she and Fiora sat there holding hands on a couch, when both of them should have been working.


End file.
